[DeTomaso] Valve stem gotcha

[Mike Drew]

All,

After putting over 400 miles on Lori's Pantera last weekend, yesterday I decided to take mine for a spin. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it sitting on a nearly flat rear tire. The fact that it wasn't completely flat led me to suspect the cause was something other than a nail in the tire. I had experienced just such a condition with Lori's car a couple of years ago. 

I carefully removed the De Tomaso logo valve stem cap, and found this:

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The logo caps are equipped with a small rubber O-ring which is designed to surround the valve stem plunger, and help seal the tire in the even of a leaky valve stem seal. In this case, the O-ring became dislodged during installation (I checked pressures just before the fun rally) and it actually had a detrimental effect. It lightly pressed the valve stem and created a tiny leak. 

The fix will be to put a dab of RTV in the bottom of the cap and glue the O-ring in place. 

Just FYI....

Mike


Sent from my iPhone